Industrial Revolution

One of every 10 jobs requiring information technology skills is going unfilled, according to the Information Technology Association of America. The reason: a shortage of qualified workers. The group surveyed 2,000 large and midsized companies and found at least 190,000 unfilled information technology jobs. The report cited a decline in college graduates with degrees in mathematics or computer science. "It's like running out of iron ore in the middle of the Industrial Revolution," said the association's president.

It may come as an unwelcome surprise, but the latest American revolution is in full swing, though in its earliest stages — and promises to transform this country from a republic into a democracy. Received opinion, the CliffsNotes, flag-waving, exceptional-claiming, jingoistic, Sarah-Palin-shallow-simplistic brand of American history paints a tidy picture, wrapping this country in ribbons and bows, a present to ourselves and the world: founding fathers dictating founding documents and decades unfolding according to an insisted-upon God-given and driven script — little or no anguish, few bumps in the road.

It is highly unlikely that President Clinton`s program to promote a "quick" creation of jobs can succeed, no matter how generously funded and diligently promoted. We should be disturbed by the specter of overpopulation and its effects on the environment, our standard of living and unemployment. Add to that the very serious impact the current "industrial revolution" is having on employment. Changes brought on by the flow of inventions and techniques in the service and industrial areas dramatically outpace the "industrial revolution" of the 19th century.

Throughout life, you meet people of such little relevance to you that they would be anonymous -- if not for a few shared words, a simple idea they passed along. John King was such a person. I met John in the late '70s. He and I were college students working the graveyard shift. I don't know where he came from, or what's happened to him since. But one night, as we waited at the time clock to punch in, he said something that caused me to remember his name for more than a quarter century.

Journey to Jamestown. By Lois Ruby. Kingfisher, $6.95. Ages 8-12 We think you'll flip over this book -- really. It tells the story of two kids at the Jamestown settlement in Virginia in 1608. One is a boy named Elias who has come from England and works with the barber-surgeon to help the colonists fight disease in the new world. The other kid is Sacahocan, a Native American girl with the gift of healing. She meets and likes Elias, especially the fact that they are both "healers." But the leader of Elias' colony has cheated her tribe and she is not sure she can trust any of the colonists, including Elias.

The new service economy has caused just as radical a change in the nation`s working habits as the Industrial Revolution, and it is time to enact legislation to ease the strain, the leader of a working women`s group says. "What`s really at stake is whether there will be a new social contract," said Karen Nussbaum, executive director of 9 to 5, the National Association of Working Women, an organization that represents office workers. Nussbaum spoke at a meeting of the National Public Employer Labor Relations Association on Wednesday at Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale.

With the November election approaching, speculation is increasing about a major political housecleaning, with the electorate turning out entrenched rulers in record numbers. The Times Mirror Center last month reported people are angrier at government than they have been in years, and various surveys indicate seven out of 10 citizens don't trust Congress to act in the nation's best interest. President Bill Clinton's approval rating is just above 40 percent, and many incumbent Democrats would rather have him stay in Washington than campaign at their sides.

For years, men have been asking the Freudian question, "What do women want?" But as the PBS` A Gathering of Men (10 tonight, WPBT-Ch. 2, WXEL-Ch. 42) with Bill Moyers shows, men still have a lot to learn about themselves before moving to the hard stuff. According to American poet Robert Bly, whose observations are the focus of the upcoming program, "The primary experience of the American man now is the experience of being inadequate. In your work, you can`t achieve what you want to. You feel inadequate as a man because you don`t feel you have any close male friends, and you don`t know why. And you feel inadequate as a husband because your wife is always saying that you don`t talk about your feelings enough."

Student journalists learn early that some things are best not reported in newspapers. Bomb threat stories, for example, tend to cause more bomb threats. By publishing the 35,000-word manifesto of the so-called Unabomber, The Washington Post and New York Times may have fallen into the same trap. For terrorists whose greatest hunger is public attention, here is a proven technique: Kill people. Threaten to kill again if the hunger for publicity is not fed. Over a 17-year period, the Unabomber is believed to be responsible for 23 injuries and three fatalities.

The news that the Vatican had finally accepted Charles Darwin's theory left me with a ho-hum feeling. Wasn't it they who took hundreds of years to accept the heliocentric theory of Galileo, basing their reasoning on faith rather the scientific method of hypothesis and proof (where hypothesis can be disproved)? Even Darwin was disturbed by his own discoveries. Being an ordained minister, he felt uncomfortable with his findings that went against the church's teaching. Darwin never used the word evolution in his works.

Journey to Jamestown. By Lois Ruby. Kingfisher, $6.95. Ages 8-12 We think you'll flip over this book -- really. It tells the story of two kids at the Jamestown settlement in Virginia in 1608. One is a boy named Elias who has come from England and works with the barber-surgeon to help the colonists fight disease in the new world. The other kid is Sacahocan, a Native American girl with the gift of healing. She meets and likes Elias, especially the fact that they are both "healers." But the leader of Elias' colony has cheated her tribe and she is not sure she can trust any of the colonists, including Elias.

At the turn of the 20th century, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, titans of industry forged bold new empires, and government clamped down with tough rules to protect against abuses. At the turn of the 21st century, in the midst of the digital revolution, captains of e-business are working with government instead to avert excessive regulation. That's the way the chief executive officer of the world's biggest consulting firm summed up one of the globe's newest challenges: finding ways to steer a technological revolution proceeding at breakneck speed across the globe and into realms never imagined.

The new PBS mini-series 1900 House, which started last week, follows a modern British family that has agreed to spend three months living in a London townhouse that has been carefully de-modernized -- electric wiring stripped out and gas lighting put back into service, plumbing degraded back to Victorian standards and so on. The first episode, about the preparation of the house and the selection of the family, was terrific, prompting some serious thoughts...

Whenever I read a novel - or see its film adaptation - of the modern era, I am made aware of what so many of us no longer have: a sense of place. What is the modern era? Historians locate its beginning at various moments. Some place it with the Renaissance and its break with tradition. Others say it begins with the 17th century, the birth of the age of science. Many others jump forward to the 19th century, with the Industrial Revolution and the key role played by the intellectual and artistic avant-gardes.

One of every 10 jobs requiring information technology skills is going unfilled, according to the Information Technology Association of America. The reason: a shortage of qualified workers. The group surveyed 2,000 large and midsized companies and found at least 190,000 unfilled information technology jobs. The report cited a decline in college graduates with degrees in mathematics or computer science. "It's like running out of iron ore in the middle of the Industrial Revolution," said the association's president.

The news that the Vatican had finally accepted Charles Darwin's theory left me with a ho-hum feeling. Wasn't it they who took hundreds of years to accept the heliocentric theory of Galileo, basing their reasoning on faith rather the scientific method of hypothesis and proof (where hypothesis can be disproved)? Even Darwin was disturbed by his own discoveries. Being an ordained minister, he felt uncomfortable with his findings that went against the church's teaching. Darwin never used the word evolution in his works.

As an expatriate from Cleveland, my ears perked up on Wednesday when the announcer on National Public Radio reminded the nation that 25 years had passed since the Cuyahoga River caught on fire. I remember the event well. I was living in Cleveland at the time, having just returned home from college. After the fire, it became politically acceptable to make Cleveland jokes. (What's the difference between Cleveland and the Titanic? Cleveland has a better orchestra.) Cleveland's pyrotechnics inspired a song by Randy Newman that included the refrain, "Burn on big river, burn on."

Two hundred years ago today, a mob of Parisian commoners stormed the Bastille, a 14th-century fortress being used as a jail, in hopes of seizing arms and ammunition. Their daring gesture turned out to be far more symbolic than strategic. There was little armament and only seven prisoners, none of them political, were being held in the lightly guarded jail. Still, the idealism that inspired the crowd to strike its blow against the power and glory of King Louis XVI, along with the disillusionment, confusion and terror that ensued, have combined to make July 14, 1789 -- Bastille Day -- the perfect metaphor for the French Revolution.

They have been lampooned as "grumpy old men" and characterized as the "edgy eight."The group referred to has conferred by conference call and through the exchange of faxes over the past few weeks coordinated in these efforts by the former governor of Colorado, Richard Lamm. Others in this collaborative effort have included Gov. Angus King of Maine, an Independent, Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., former Gov. Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, former Sens. Gary Hart of Colorado and Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, former Congressman Tim Penny of Minnesota, and yours truly, also a former member of Congress whose special interest in an independent brand of politics at the national level stems from his own presidential bid in 1980.

Student journalists learn early that some things are best not reported in newspapers. Bomb threat stories, for example, tend to cause more bomb threats. By publishing the 35,000-word manifesto of the so-called Unabomber, The Washington Post and New York Times may have fallen into the same trap. For terrorists whose greatest hunger is public attention, here is a proven technique: Kill people. Threaten to kill again if the hunger for publicity is not fed. Over a 17-year period, the Unabomber is believed to be responsible for 23 injuries and three fatalities.